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The South is a weird place. While both Alabama’s and Mississippi’s leadership still swear a kind of George Wallace oath against gay marriage, the populace itself is far more diverse. I maintain that Southerners talk a lot of shit that they don’t actually mean in an attempt to set themselves apart and, of course, some are rampant racist homophobes champing at the bit to set alight any negro “quars” that they come across. But far more simply aren’t that way at all.

As a way of expressing this kind of oddly hopeful weirdness I offer the following anecdote. A buddy of mine campaigning for Barrack Obama in a deeply rural Southern state during the 2008 election came up to a trailer park armed with campaign signs, ready to do ideological battle with its residents, was greeted with the following statement after asking one couple if they planned on voting for John McCain…”hell no, we’re voting for the nigger.”

Weird indeed.